


Tantric Sex, and Other Mysteries of the Divine

by DesdemonaKaylose



Series: Lost Light Megarung Collection [3]
Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Awkward Crush, M/M, Oral Sex, Porn With Plot, Pre-Mutiny, Sticky Sexual Interfacing, it's okay to think your amica is hot sometimes, mtmte era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-23
Updated: 2020-01-23
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:20:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22293976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesdemonaKaylose/pseuds/DesdemonaKaylose
Summary: “It’s driving Ratchet nuts trying to diagnose,” Rewind says, “he thinks it’s some kind of coding virus.”Nightbeat investigates. Megatron... also... investigates.
Relationships: Megatron/Rung, Rung & Nightbeat
Series: Lost Light Megarung Collection [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1648138
Comments: 27
Kudos: 142





	Tantric Sex, and Other Mysteries of the Divine

**Author's Note:**

> The working title for this was "sex mystery", so, there you have it, really.

It’s game night at Swerve’s, and Nightbeat is out in the thick of the crew for once, getting the lay of the land. He stuck around after the relaunch from Cybertron because, honestly, where’s a mystery hunter supposed to go that’s _better_ than deep uncharted regions of the galaxy chasing after an enigmatic message in a lost artifact? But he’s not usually much of a bot for crowds, so this kind of event is still pretty fresh ground.

He’s helping Chromedome collect their table’s drinks from the bar, doing his best not to get distracted by the weird miasma of Clues in a room full of this many oddballs. He congratulates himself for not immediately dropping everything and investigating what the deal is with Riptide over at the blackjack table, while Swerve gathers up their order for them. 

And that’s when Chromedome doubles over.

“Goddamn it,” he says, “not again…”

Nightbeat does a doubletake, hand hanging in midair as he forgets to finish grabbing the tray of drinks Swerve is passing them. “…You alright there?” Nightbeat asks, cross referencing the episode against any medical conditions he knows of. No match; he doesn’t exactly hang out with Chromedome all the time, but he’s still pretty sure he would have noticed the other symptoms of Cybercrosis before it got to the spasming-and-shaking stage. 

Chromedome slumps onto the tabletop, fingers clutching the edge of the bar, eyes wide and washed out. “H, hold on, one second—”

Nightbeat frowns, looking up and across the bar. A subsonic frequency? Some kind of radio emission? Were the radiation shields on the hull of the ship starting to leak?

“Does this happen often?” he asks, spotting someone in a corner booth furiously biting down into their own knuckle, optical lights equally bright. The more he looks, the more little hints he can pick out. In a bar with 32 current patrons, there are perhaps 12 who are exhibiting signs of distress, distraction, or embarrassment. 

Chromedome makes a strangled noise. “More than it used to,” he manages. “Way more than it used to. I swear it happened maybe three times on our first run, before we relaunched. Now it’s—”

He pops his vents abruptly, pouring steam and heated air out into the bar atmosphere. It seems like a relief; his whole body relaxes. How curious. While any sort of sudden system launch could create that kind of heat output, it’s unusual to see without some kind of visible engagement—usually a transformation sequence, or an outlier ability, or—

“Excuse me,” Nightbeat says, sniffing the air, “are you _aroused?”_

“Shut _up,”_ Chromedome grinds out, and then it seems to be over, because he straightens up and snatches the drink tray out of Swerve’s hands.

“Hoo boy,” Swerve says, passing over the second tray, “it got him bad this time! Is it just me, or does he _always_ get got?”

“Interesting question,” Nightbeat says, predictably intrigued.

When they get back to the table, tray of drinks in hand, Nightbeat wastes no time in following up on his hunch. He slides Tailgate’s fizzy drink over to him and says, “So how many of you, exactly, just felt that.”

Around the table there’s a mix of grimaces and blank looks. No one who is now grimacing was missing from the cadre of those exhibiting symptoms earlier, which lends credence to his theory that the experience isn’t something you can just ignore.

“Oh,” says Tailgate, brightly, “you mean the heat spikes.”

Nightbeat gives him an incredulous look. Well _that_ name isn’t suggestive at all. 

“I’ve been noticing those for a while,” Tailgate goes on, “Cyclonus says he doesn’t know what they are either, but I’ve been hanging out with Getaway a couple times when it happened, and it always makes him kind of touchier.”

Nightbeat and several other people at the table exchange uneasy glances. 

They’ve all got a card game out on the table, which is the main reason Nightbeat is here at all instead of running amok with Nautica in the engine room; he’s curious about the repertoire of games picked up on planet Earth, of which there are quite a lot. Smokescreen, keeper of all games, is slapping down ornate red cards on the table, wrist flicking tidily. 

No one wants to be the one to ask what kind of _touchy_ Tailgate means. “Chromedome said it’s gotten worse since the relaunch,” Nightbeat says, prodding for data and incidentally changing the subject while he’s at it. Tailgate and Getaway aren’t a _mystery_ , they’re just an uncomfortable train wreck waiting to happen. A flash guy like Getaway, going after a bot next door like Tailgate? Nothing good is happening there.

“That’s true,” Smokescreen says. “For whatever it’s worth.”

“Nooo, it’s gotten more _frequent,”_ Gears says, waving a finger, “the intensity hasn’t really changed, trust me.”

“But it _is_ more frequent,” Rewind agrees. He’s perched on Chromedome’s lap, nosily reading his conjunx’s cards.

“Huh,” says Tailgate. “Weird how it only started really going when Megatron joined the crew!”

“Plenty of other things happened between touch down and relaunch,” Ratchet points out. “Somebody raised a necrotitan, for example. Primus knows what that did to our collective coding. Not to mention the gestalt business, there could have been some kind of contagion arising from there. It’s just irritating that I can’t _find_ it. What I really need is a dedicated neuroscientist, but we haven’t got any of those left and we barely had any to begin with.”

Most people at the table take sideways little glances at Chromedrome, who turns his head away the slightest degree. It’s pretty common knowledge what happened to all the actual neuroscientists, once shadowplay came into fashion. 

A non-medic can learn mnemosurgery, if he has a knack for it. But it takes a neuroscientist to invent neuroscience, before it can be learned by anyone else.

“It’s driving Ratchet nuts trying to diagnose,” Rewind says, “he thinks it’s some kind of coding virus.” 

“I said it _might_ be,” Ratchet corrects. He’s handling the cards Smokescreen is sliding him like he’s already well familiar with the game.

Gears gives the far corner of the bar a dark look, apparently seeing through it into a horrible spectral truth. “Probably that quantum engine no one understands is slowly killing us all...”

“Let’s don’t talk about it,” Chromedome insists, dragging his playing cards over to himself. “We’ve done a great job of not talking about it up until now, let’s keep that up.”

“But what does it _feel_ like,” Nightbeat asks, ignoring him utterly. Chromedome hunches into his hands of cards and mutters something uncharitable.

“Why _don’t_ we talk about it?” Tailgate says. “Is it horrible? Is it painful?”

“Ehhhh...” says Gears. 

“It’s not _painful,”_ Chromedome grits out.

Rewind snickers. He pats Chromedome lightly on the hand. Nightbeat turns his attention to the game master.

“Dunno,” Smokescreen says, “it’s never happened to me. It always seems to be the same few guys. Chromedome always gets it.”

“I’m not talking about it,” Chromedome repeats.

“It doesn’t spread?” Nightbeat asks, leaning in. “If it’s a code virus, it should be spreading, shouldn’t it?”

Smokescreen shrugs. “Maybe it’s got an unusual delivery method. You heard about the Rust Plague fiasco Ratchet got dragged into?” He nods his head at Ratchet, who is grimly focusing on his cards. “That one was sonic.”

“No,” Nightbeat says, immediately distracted by missing information in his catalog of Lost Light data. “Sonic in what way?”

They’re still talking about _it_ several shift cycles later, which is mostly Nightbeat’s fault, on account of he keeps bringing it up. He’s taking an active tally of everyone who’s experienced the phenomenon. He’s working on his hypothesis.

Tonight he’s with a different little clique, lazing around in the rec room on the fourth floor helping Rung twist together some kind of decorative paper structure that he learned how to make from an alien on Kimia. It’s him and Skids and Brainstorm, and Tailgate again, and Cyclonus lurking in the corner like he doesn’t want them to get any funny ideas about including him in the conversation.

“Cold constructs?” Rung echoes. “Come now, Nightbeat, that’s always the first guess and it’s reductive at best.”

“It matches the data,” Nightbeat insists, and licks one of the paper edges so it will stick better, which makes Rung scrunch up his face in disapproval. “Chromedome, Atomizer, Getaway—everybody who will admit to it is CC.”

Anyway, he’s run the numbers. The visible proportion is about right, statistically; MTO’s are marginally more likely to favor engex as a coping mechanism, but less likely to drink in public spaces. And while MTO production rates between armies were about equal, first wave recruitment drives for Decepticons skewed toward cold constructs. So a bit less than half of those bots present in Swerves matches up against the stats, even if he hasn’t been able to confirm cold backgrounds for everyone afflicted. Except with MTO’s, asking tends to get the investigator fewer straight answers than drinks thrown in the face.

There’s some clatter of footsteps down the hall from them all, which Nightbeat spares a second to analyze. One set of footsteps he knows; that’s Nautica’s gate. He perks up a bit.

Tailgate, likely unaware of this, says, “What about Megatron? Megatron is cold constructed.”

Nightbeat opens his mouth to ask how Tailgate knows _that_ , of all things to know, when the passing figures in the hallway come into sight. Huh. Well speak of the Unmaker.

The other set of footsteps is Megatron himself, which wouldn’t be so strange on its own—he _does_ live here now, in spite of all good sense—the strange part is who’s leading whom. Nautica is steadily towing the old general along, an absolutely mindboggling feat of bravery from someone who doesn’t know enough to be freaked out by what she’s accomplished. But, well, Nightbeat isn’t afraid of Megatron either, at least not today, in this place, with this mission. Some people are sure Megatron’s playing the long game and sooner or later he’s going to kill them all, but far as _he’s_ concerned, if there was a plot happening it would leave clues, and clues are Nightbeat’s whole bag. 

Anyway, he’s been worse than dead before. So he’s not worried yet.

Nightbeat swings up an arm and calls out to her. “Nautica! Pitstop over here!”

Megatron’s expression flickers with a deeper displeasure, but he still allows himself to be towed over. Now that they’re closer Nightbeat thinks he can see a gentle tugging against Nautica’s grip, and he has to wonder why Megatron isn’t just ripping free, if he’d rather not follow.

“What’s up?” asks Nautica. 

“We’re talking about the _thing_ again,” Brainstorm says, without looking up from the tool he’s been fiddling with all day. Nightbeat has tried to tell him there’s a limited amount of space within which one can store a corkscrew inside of a wrench, but the little glitch just keeps quoting some Earth media at him instead of listening.

“Oh,” Nautica says, amused, “the _thing_ again. Well you’ve already asked me, and I told you, I don't feel a thing when it happens.”

“Yeah, no worries,” Nightbeat says, and switches the full force of his analysis over to the war criminal looming uncomfortably behind his friend. “What about you, _captain_ , do you feel it?”

Brainstorm looks up sharply, tensing his wings behind him like he’s ready to launch. Rung also freezes, his little engine giving a cough. Nightbeat ignores them both.

Megatron looks between all of them, his gaze finally falling on Nightbeat in turn. His face becomes the slightest bit more difficult to read. “You’re speaking of the periodic sensory glitches our crew seems to experience en mass,” he says. 

“Got it in one,” Nightbeats says. “What about you, then, are you part of the mass experiencing periodic glitches?”

“I am not,” Megatron says, and Nightbeat believes him. So much for the simple CC theory. Then his burning red eyes narrow, and he adds, “I am _also_ interested in the phenomenon. Everyone I’ve asked about it has proved unwilling to provide any detail.”

“Yeah,” Brainstorm snorts, “wonder why.”

There’s an uncomfortable moment of silence, in which Megatron stares at Brainstorm with all the implacable intensity of solar radiation. The moment stretches on.

Brainstorm eventually kicks out an ankle and turns himself around on the floor, so that everyone else is facing his wings. He hunches down over his project. “It’s like if you could feel an overload through a closed door,” he says, trying for careless and not quite making the shot. “Like a half hour of self service compressed in a zip download. I’ve heard.”

Megatron frowns. Nightbeat nods. That’s about what Getaway had said, although Getaway had been much more enthused about the prospect.

There’s a little polite clearing of an intake. “Odd how I’ve never noticed it,” Rung says. “I can’t say I’ve ever been present when an episode took place. What do you think of that, Nightbeat?”

Nightbeat stiffens and slowly turns to him. In the corner of his vision, he sees Megatron stiffen in the same way.

He runs the odds. It’s not impossible by any means, but he knows that Rung attends Swerve’s for the company probably one out of every three off-shifts, and there’s always at least _one_ of the afflicted mechs hanging around the bar during prime hours—and furthermore, he knows how delightfully observant Rung is, especially when he’s sipping mid-grade at a bar and people-watching. There’s no chance he would miss the event if it was happening around him.

“Probably nothing,” Nightbeat says. “You might have been around it and no one wanted to let you know, on account of it's embarrassing to share with a psychiatrist. The whole thing smacks of the Froidian.”

Rung’s delicate features screw up in a moue of distaste. “Froidian,” he says. “I should hope _not_.”

“Quite,” Megatron rumbles. “Still, at the rate things are progressing, I’m sure you will see it sooner or later. You have a keen eye. You will be kind enough to report anything you observe to me, won’t you, Rung?”

Nightbeat fights the urge to reset his optics like some sort of dumbstruck hick as Rung’s entire being—frame and face and antenna language in earnest harmony—lights up. Literally, even, his spark panel seems brighter. Nightbeat finds himself noticing for the first time that Rung’s biolights are actually teal and not standard autobot blue. 

“If I see anything worth noting,” Rung says, “certainly, Megatron.”

Megatron pauses, hesitates, and kneels down to lift a scattered link of decorative paper from the floor by his pede. He offers it out, looped over one of his considerable fingers, his expression unreadable.

Rung is normally unassuming to the point of almost being _insubstantial_ , but when he reaches out to take that scrap from Megatron’s open hand, Nightbeat has the urge to poll the rest of the room to see if they’re _also_ noticing that Rung is almost handsome, in a long-out-of-fashion way.

Megatron gives him a simple affirmative nod, and stands up.

Once Megatron is gone, off to see whatever new engine patch Nautica is proposing, Rung is perfectly normal. Nightbeat can’t let it go, though, because he’s never in his life let _anything_ go. He adds it to the mental inventory of strange sights and seemings on this bizarre trip across the stars, and keeps his receptors on maximum input. 

  
  


Almost like speaking of it summoned it into existence, the next flux comes within hours of the conversation in the rec room. Flying by sheer instinct, the moment that Nightbeat catches the scent of static off of a bot passing him in the hall, Nightbeat makes a run for it. It’s several floors down, but Nightbeat knows where the nearest maintenance elevator is, and he takes it like a straight shot into the heart of a hot hunch. That is to say, within moments of the phenomenon, Nightbeat is coming around the corner towards the hab suite assigned to the ship’s psychiatrist. He reaches for the door panel—

A much larger hand reaches at the same time.

In an instant, Nightbeat and Megatron recoil from each other. 

“What are you doing here?” Megatron asks, somewhere between suspicion and threat.

“Investigating,” Nightbeat retorts. “What are _you_ doing here? It’s off shift, and you’re not friends with Rung. You’re not friends with _anyone.”_

“I’m the captain,” Megatron says. “Rung is senior staff. I don’t have to justify myself to you.”

They lock glares. Lightning, metaphorically, flashes. “This is my mystery,” Nightbeat says, “and _I’m_ going to solve it.”

“It’s my ship,” Megatron replies. “ _My_ crew.”

Nightbeat snorts. “That’s so _much_ rusty scrap! You’re barely even tolerated on this ship!”

“Get out of the way,” Megatron says, definitely a threat this time. “If you obstruct my business as captain, I’ll have Ultra Magnus remove you physically.”

“Just try it,” Nightbeat mutters, and slaps his hand down over the door sensor.

The door whooshes back. They both dive for the entrance, trying to be first to the scene, and stop short on the threshold with Megatron’s hand pushing on Nightbeat’s helm and Nightbeat’s elbow in Megatron’s hip joint.

Rung stares at them.

They stare at Rung.

The still-vibrating toy inside of Rung slips a fingerwidth out of his valve.

Here’s the moment of the scene, as it is burned into Nightbeat’s memory: there’s shiny slick fluid glimmering on Rung’s inner thighs, the matte-white gone pearlescent with spilled lubricant and transfluid. There’s a smaller toy, also glinting slickly, tossed across the berth. His burning node is caught in the V of his fingers, peeking out swollen from between the delicate joints. He’s on his knees, free hand pressed palm-flat against the wall behind him for support.

“I could swear I locked that,” Rung says, faintly.

Megatron, apparently struck dumb, shakes his head. The door swishes closed behind them both, following its automatic timer. 

“Well,” Rung says. “You’re here. Would you like some tea?”

  
  


Several minutes later, with a tarp pulled over the debauched berth, Rung finishes wiping off his thighs. The solvent in his silver-age kettle sets off a chime as it reaches a simmer. Megatron and Nightbeat have both taken seats at the little table that Rung keeps in his somewhat-larger-than-standard officer’s quarters. Nightbeat fits it fine; Megatron looks a bit like a sentinel class warship trying to sit down for dinner with the senate.

Rung pours them each a cup of something that smells like copper and gold, no doubt meant to be good for the circuitry, and sits down in the remaining space at the table.

“Sorry,” Nightbeat starts off, which is admittedly not a word in his top 100 most used vocabulary. “I thought you would have been done by the time I got there.”

“I was going for a second one,” Rung says, mouth hidden behind his cup. He looks at the starboard wall, antenna flicking restlessly. 

“You don’t normally do that?” Nightbeat asks.

“No,” Rung says, “I don’t.” He gives Nightbeat a look that says _you’re pushing your luck_ much clearer than any words could.

“And you’re doing this more often recently,” Nightbeat pushes anyway, “right? Since we relaunched?”

Sip. “I am finding my environment increasingly more… stimulating,” Rung answers, carefully.

“You mean since Megatron joined the crew,” Nightbeat says.

Rung freezes, hands around his cup, antenna flattened back against his helm. Nightbeat is caught between the impulse to pump his fist and to swear. On the one hand, he _knew_ it, and he _loves_ being right. On the other hand—holy hell, _Megatron?_ Rung is his friend, and he wouldn’t wish that on his _enemies_.

“Nightbeat,” Rung says, slowly, “what _precisely_ is going on here?”

“To be entirely frank,” Megatron says, “this is still on the matter from earlier this evening. Specifically, the periodic sensory fluxes among the crew.”

Rung frowns. He hasn’t put his glasses back on, so Nightbeat is treated to the entire production of his extremely expressive facial features rearranging themselves.

Megatron sets down his cup, which he still hasn’t drunk from.

“Apparently Nightbeat and I had the same suspicion,” Megatron says. “The reason you’re never present for the phenomenon is that you’re at the center of it.”

“Your hab is directly underneath Swerve’s,” Nightbeat chimes in, determined not to let Megatron hog the spotlight of a good mystery being unraveled. “The effect is strongest there, and less strong as you get closer to the prow.”

“But,” Rung says, “but _how?”_

“Not sure about that,” Nightbeat admits. “ _Yet._ But you’re supposed to have the brightest spark onboard, right? Maybe it’s related. A power output thing. In the moment of climax, there’s so much excess charge running through the system, it’s not impossible it could be overcoming the—”

“The Blackrotor’s Threshold,” Megatron finishes, pressing his knuckles to his lips. “Which prevents the spark from transmitting its internal frequencies on open broadcast. But why only _some_ of the crew? Why so many MTO’s?”

Nightbeat turns in his seat, tapping his own mouth. “Before I joined the crew, there was that business with Tyrest. Apparently all cold constructs have the same spark frequency, that could—but then why doesn’t it affect _you?”_

“Excuse me,” Rung says. He cocks one generous brow. “Gentlemechs, pardon me. What is it you expect me to _do_ with this information?”

Megatron breaks gazes with Nightbeat. “What do you mean?”

Rung grimaces. “Well I know exactly what Ultra Magnus will have to say about this,” he admits. “A disruption to the crew that I’m responsible for? Think about it.”

Nightbeat opens his mouth. He closes it, tries again. “Oh, hell,” he says, “he’ll try to have Rodimus ban you from wanking.”

“Or, possibly worse, try to enforce some kind of schedule,” Rung agrees. “Not that I’m not… of two minds about the whole thing, myself. On the one hand, it should go without saying I value my personal time as much as anyone on this ship. Or the other hand, it does seem somewhat… wrong... to subject so many other people to… er…”

“Wanking by proxy,” Nightbeat suggests.

Rung slumps, cup cradled to his chest. “Just so,” he says.

They all sit in a silence tinged with unpleasant anticipation for several moments. Rung sips his tea. The kettle pings softly as it cools.

“I suppose I’ll just have to… stop,” Rung sighs. “I suppose it’s not anything I need to survive. I can get along, I’m sure. Plenty of people have it worse than me…” 

Megatron frowns. “Rung,” he says, “you don’t drink, you don’t fight, you don’t gamble—frankly, I’m not sure you have any _other_ vices, and in my experience, crewmembers without vices don’t last very long before they have screaming nervous breakdowns.”

“Oh, is _that_ how you kept your army running,” Nightbeat mutters.

“That’s the experience of wartime,” Rung points out, ignoring his friend. “It’s not wartime. There’s no problem with living moderately.”

“Moderately and ascetically are two different things,” Megatron counters.

“What would you have me do, then!” Rung says, apparently losing patience. “I’m not subjecting myself to some kind of _wanking tribunal._ You can’t tell me you’re supportive of having your crew disrupted just because it’s _me_ disrupting it.”

Megatron doesn’t say anything right away. He reaches out over the table and tips his cup over, so that his brassy tea pours neatly and precisely into Rung’s mostly empty cup.

“Let’s not forget,” Megatron says, “apparently, I am the exacerbating factor in this situation.”

Rung holds his ground, expression not softening the smallest bit, which would be impressive if it weren’t for his madly twitching antenna. 

“My hab is on the opposite side of the ship from Swerve’s and the engine room,” Megatron says. “The radius of effect would be reduced. That, combined with some informal scheduling—”

“You’re not suggesting I go _across_ the ship, to my _captain’s_ quarters, just so I can self service in someone else’s room?” Rung looks mortified, biolights all blazing flushed. “What, in your—in your washrack? In your _berth?_ You must be joking.”

“As a matter of fact,” Megatron says, “I was suggesting you allow me to assist you.”

Rung’s eyes blow wide.

Nightbeat puts down his cup so fast the dregs of his tea splash across the tabletop. “Now hold on a moment,” he says, “if anyone should be banned from interfacing it’s you, _captain.”_

“That was not anywhere on the list of my restrictions,” Megatron responds, somehow _amused_ by this. “In fact, Prime specifically encouraged me to build _individual and meaningful_ relationships with his autobots, prior to our departure. While I doubt he had this exactly in mind...”

“I am not going to stand around and let you frag my friend,” Nightbeat insists, “regardless of what anyone else has to say about it.”

“Nightbeat, please,” Rung says, forehead cradled in his hand. Nightbeat ignores him. 

“You’re a genocidal maniac,” Nightbeat carries on, “you’ve probably killed more people with _those_ hands than I’ve ever _met_. You could rip him in two without even engaging half your systems. I don’t see why I should trust _you_ to take care of him, just because he happens to fancy you lately.”

“Shouldn’t that be Rung’s decision?” Megatron counters.

Nightbeat jabs the table with a fingertip. “I know Rung, and I know he’s a good mech who will take care of anyone in the galaxy before he takes care of himself, and that list now apparently includes _murderers_. How am I supposed to trust you to frag him and not hurt him?”

“Nightbeat,” Rung says, his entire face now cradled in his hand. “What are you going to do, _chaperone_ me?”

“I’m fine with that,” Megatron says. “We probably should test to make sure there aren’t any adverse effects the first time, anyway.”

“I’m older than both of you!” Rung protests. “This is certainly not my first time around the quadrant! I don’t need to be _monitored_ in berth!”

“Then it’s settled,” Nightbeat says. “We’ll reconvene at Megatron’s hab this time next cycle.”

“Nightbeat!” Rung says, twisting in his chair.

“Acceptable,” Megatron says. “I will arrange the duty roster appropriately.”

“Will both of you _stop_ and _listen_ to me!”

Nightbeat and Megatron exchange a look. Nightbeat sits back. Megatron sits forward.

“Yes, Rung,” Megatron says. “Of course. You are the final word on everything here. But please consider, we are only trying to take care of you.”

Rung hesitates. 

Megatron leans in a fraction closer. “You might let yourself be taken care of, this once.”

Rung clutches his drink. His expression wavers, brows pulling together. There’s something fragile in him, for a moment, something Nightbeat has suspected but never seen, and it threatens to crack him open like a spark extractor.

He sets down his cup. 

  
  


Outside the door to Megatron’s hab, Rung is already stalled and dithering by the time Nightbeat pulls up. Nightbeat waves, Rung barely stops worrying his palms against each other long enough to lift a hand in response. 

“Still can change your mind,” Nightbeat says, by way of hello. “We can cut Megatron right out of it, you know.”

It’s kind of cute how Rung stops being nervous just long enough to be exasperated. He’s taken his glasses off for the night, although Nightbeat would bet money they’re in one of his compartments just in case he needs to make a quick extrication later.

“You really don’t need to be so worried about me,” Rung says, with a little side-eye. “I’m sure Megatron wouldn’t try anything untoward, not with his co-captain just waiting for an excuse to eject him into the nearest prison complex.”

“Well,” Nightbeats says, “maybe so. But I’ll be damned if I get cut out of my own investigation at the most critical stage. Anyway, have you seen the size of that mech? His spike is probably as big as your thigh.”

“Trust me,” Rung mutters, “I’ve thought about it.”

They don’t have a chance to knock; the door slides open, revealing a dimly lit room with little inside it. It isn’t an officer’s room, surprisingly. It’s just a normal hab suite, albeit one with a single berth instead of the standard two. Megatron is waiting for them, perched coolly on the edge of it, waiting for them like the villain out of some earth cartoon.

Nightbeat leans over slightly and says, out the corner of his mouth, “ _That’s_ the guy you wanna clang?”

“Good evening Megatron,” Rung says, ignoring him, and steps into the suite. “Thank you for having us.”

Megatron gives him a borderline amused look. Rung flushes.

On second glance, Megatron is not actually just sitting in the dark waiting for them like some cursed talisman. There’s something in his hands that he smoothly slides away, out of sight almost before it can be noticed. He stands up, gesturing to the berth he’s just vacated.

Flushed biolights aside, Rung has a cool exterior, but Nightbeat is close enough that he can see a little tremble pass through the smaller mech before he accepts the invitation.

“There’s a seat for you in the corner,” Megatron tells Nightbeat, flicking his wrist much more casually at the out-of-place chair that’s been dragged into the room. 

“You do this a lot?” Nightbeat asks, “Interface for an audience?”

“Decidedly not,” Megatron says, and offers a hand to Rung, helping him up to the taller than standard berth top. “Still, I’m gratified to know that Rung has a friend who cares so much for him as to be his witness. Your concern is understandable. Having been on the other side of a war for several million years, you have no way of knowing my character.”

Not sure what to do with that level of (possible) sincerity, Nightbeat settles into his corner and fiddles with his pocket signal receptor.

“It’s very… generous, of you,” Rung says, warily. He’s tucked his knees up under him on the berth, hands folded in his lap, the posture of someone trying to minimize the space they take up. “You know you don’t _actually_ have to do this. I’m quite capable of dealing with my own charge.”

“This is the soundest tactical approach,” Megatron replies, hands clasped neatly behind his back. “If you’re being satisfied on a regular basis, you will feel less need to _deal_ with things on your own.”

Rung’s shoulders hunch slightly, the grip of his folded fingers tightening. “You needn’t treat me like some kind of bomb to be diffused. I’m not terribly excited to become the next onerous military campaign of your career.”

Megatron reaches out with one broad grey hand, and then curls it back into itself, uncertainly. It softens his commanding posture a new an unanticipated way. “On the contrary,” Megatron says. “It is my privilege to be of assistance to you.”

“Is it?” Rung says, doubtful.

Megatron curls his fingers a few more times, and then seems to make up his mind. “I’d like to touch you.” 

Rung almost looks like he’s about to bolt. He watches the open palm approaching him like a creature watching the inevitable, the soaring plummet of a meteorite through the atmosphere. “Yes,” he says, “alright.” 

The hand, hesitating, touches the bare edge of Rung’s helm, and then gently curls to hold it. Underneath it, the antenna flicks desperately. Nightbeat purses his lips and slumps into his seat—not exactly what he was expecting. At this rate, he’ll be here all night waiting for Megatron to get Rung to overload. He should have brought a book to read.

Rung clears his intake. “How, ah, how would you like to start?”

Definitely not the rough and domineering encounter Nightbeat was expecting from the conqueror of a thousand fallen worlds. If he didn’t know better, he’d say Megatron looks _embarrassed._ “If you would open up for me…?”

There’s a soft click and a rearranging of plating. The tip of Rung’s spike peeks out of the housing, as if nosing into his hovering fingers. Although since Rung is looking down, hard, at the place where his hand doesn’t quite cover his half-primed equipment, he isn’t privy to the look Megatron is giving him. It only lasts a moment, but Nightbeat is watching _everything._

“Back on your elbows,” Megatron says, nudging Rung back towards the end of the berth. As Rung scrambled backwards, Megatron lifts himself onto the berth and draws himself up on his forearms, looming over Rung. 

They hold that moment for a klik too long, Rung biting his lip and Megatron paused, almost as if he only just became aware of his own relative size for the first time.

With the tentative movement of someone who is afraid to touch more than what he absolutely has to, Megatron bends his head and gives the head of Rung’s spike a gentle lick, letting it rest on top of his tongue for just a moment, in a warm slick cradle. Rung’s whole frame spasms, a hand coming up to clap over his mouth.

Megatron presses his lips to the tip of the spike, sucking slightly at the transfluid duct. The modest bilolights of Rung’s array flare brilliantly.

Megatron pulls back. “Why don’t we start here?” he says. “This is the least invasive thing I can think of, to start with. There’s very little chance of my injuring you.”

“The _least_ invasive thing would be hands,” Rung says, voice already a little frayed, “possibly even frotting.”

“Mmm,” Megatron says, a vague agreement, “but I would prefer you to come inside of me, and I’ve never been one for self-denial.”

“Hggk,” Rung says.

“Also, I think I can fit your entire spike in my mouth,” Megatron says, “and I would dearly love to find out.”

Inside Rung’s spike housing, rapid pressurization exposes a new swell of metal to Megatron’s rapt attention. It _is_ a modest spike, not modded in any apparent way, but the shape and the lines of it have a certain aesthetic quality to them that Nightbeat can sort of imagine being nice on the tongue. Not that he’s thinking about that. He’s here to monitor an experiment, not to get caught up in ill-advised lust.

It’s probably a nice fit in the hand, though; not too long, thick for its size with a little curve. Just right for the proportion of modest ball-jointed hips. An eminently _grabbable_ spike.

“So then, if it’s alright with you...?” Megatron says.

Rung makes a strung out affirmative noise, and Megatron doesn’t hesitate this time. He leans in and slides his mouth down Rung’s spike, tongue cradling the underside. He looks up, lips still open around it, and allows the last bit of length to pressurize into his mouth.

It seems like it _does_ fit. Nightbeat crosses his legs and thinks about radio transmissions. 

Megatron makes a long, sweet show of sucking Rung off. He rocks his whole body a fraction forward and a fraction back, his hips whirring softly, weight on his knees and forearms. He’s either had a fair amount of practice at this or he’s the most infuriatingly self possessed mech Nightbeat has ever encountered. Both, probably. 

The sound of it gets wetter as it goes on, and the housing of Rung’s spike grows messier with leaking oral lubricant. Rung watches the tidal rhythm of Megatron working him as if mesmerized, frame periodically trembling.

“Can I,” Rung says, a hand lifting uncertainly, “can I touch you…?”

The dimness of Megatron’s optics flares to bright red. He pulls off, letting the wet tip of the spike nudge against his cheek as he says, “Of course. I’ll let you know if you do something I don’t like.”

“O-oh?”

“Probably by throwing you into a wall,” Megatron says, absently, mouthing at the side of the spike that is leaving shiny smears on his face. 

Rung looks like he doesn’t know whether that’s a joke or a threat. Nightbeat is pretty sure it’s _not_ a joke. Megatron is paying way too much attention to that segment seam to be landing a punchline.

“If you throw Rung into _anything_ , I’m having you ejected,” Nightbeat informs him. “Into the nearest sun.”

“Relax,” Megatron murmurs, “Rung isn’t big enough to do anything to me. He couldn’t force me if he wanted to.”

Nightbeat frowns. That’s not exactly what they were talking about. He’s not even sure why it’s being brought up; this is _Rung_ after all.

“Well, _no,_ I couldn’t,” Rung says, mouth screwed up in a matching frown. “But I wouldn’t want to.”

“I know,” Megatron says, and looks up, his nose buried in the delicate metal of Rung’s array. “That’s why I wanted to do this for you. You’re very kind. You deserve to be treated kindly.”

Rung gives Nightbeat a helpless look. 

Megatron sighs a little. “Yes, you can touch me,” he says. “I’m confident you can’t give me anything I haven’t handled before.”

“Have you… handled quite a lot?” Rung asks, carefully. 

“The mines I came up in were an unromantic place to learn about interface,” Megatron says, dimming his optics again. “You’re surprised that I don’t mind the lack of privacy. You shouldn’t be. The closest thing to privacy that I had for many years was the barracks after lights-out.”

His huge hand scoops up under Rung’s aft, easily holding the whole skinny joint in his palm, thumb curling around a white thigh. 

“Come on now,” he says, “we still have an overload to get for you.”

After a second of nervous lip-biting from Rung, Megatron raises an arm and presses the flat of his hand to Rung’s chest, pushing him to lay back against the berth. Then he takes Rung by the wrist, easily enclosing the whole thing in his massive fist, and pulls it to curl against his helm.

Reluctantly, Rung allows himself to be drawn back down into indulgence.

Alas, Nightbeat has stopped monitoring the frequency readings. They’ll keep, or at least, he hopes they will. It is very difficult to think about transmission output when faced with the reality of Rung and Megatron together, an odd and ungainly beauty in the mismatching of their parts, equal parts enthusiasm and surprise.

Soon enough Rung is twitching under Megatron, actuators flexing, tensing and bucking up into Megatron’s mouth. His heels push at the berth, his fingers scrabble for purchase. He looks—with all the lines of him arched in intensity, bright burning and helpless—

Nightbeat swallows heavily and regrets some small portion of his recent decisions. His frame feels hot, a little too hot, especially between his crossed legs.

Rung starts moaning in earnest. Every slide of Megatron’s mouth is another raw _mmmnn_ dragged from the bottom of his vocalizer, until they become short sharp sounds drawing dangerously close to whimpers. His legs seem to be trying to spread even wider around Megatron’s shoulders. In the midst of this all, Nightbeat almost doesn’t catch the way Megatron’s already dim optics are growing soft and hazy, half shuttered; his lips, shiny with lubricant, sloppy...

Megatron shudders and locks up, optics fizzling, as Rung comes hard down his throat. Jaw slackening, his gaze goes all but crosseyed—the noise he makes, stunned and wanton, with Rung’s spike filling his mouth, silvery drool spilling out around it—

Rung gives a smaller, matching shudder, and slumps.

Breathless, Nightbeat calls, “Did you just get a _contact high_ from touching him?”

Megatron moans dizzily, which Nightbeat suspects he would not have been caught dead doing if he was in his full faculties. There’s a lewd slurping sound, a slick wet sucking sound, as Megatron tries to take the spike _deeper._

Nightbeat claps his hand tight around his mouth and just stares.

“Mm, Megatron,” Rung manages, his hips twitching restlessly, “what are you…?”

With his dim, hazy optics, Megatron keeps licking the silvery spill even after Rung has gently pushed him off the shaft. His array snaps open, almost giving Nightbeat a spark attack—he’s not sure how anyone is supposed to handle a full unobstructed view of Megatron’s swollen valve lips, the dark mesh welling with lubricant, as erotic and forbidden as the idea of Prime’s holy blue spike. It’s _Megatron_. 

Nightbeat almost squeaks at the unexpectedness of it. He doesn’t though. Battle hardened autobots don’t squeak.

“ _Megatron_ ,” Rung half whines, “I’m—you’re—oh, god, Megatron!”

“Hmm?” Megatron says, seeming to notice the person attached to the spike again, a bit belatedly. His optics click and reset. He shifts his hips on the berth, and the folds of his valve split just the slightest bit more, spilling drips of a wet molten center. “Oh, I… hm.”

Reluctantly, Megatron sits back on his knees. He touches his mouth with two fingers, hesitant. 

“I was not expecting that,” he says, sounding a little weak. “Does that _normally_ happen to your partners?”

“Um,” Rung says, staring at the ceiling, “well I haven’t been intimate with anyone since the last time Kup and I passed through the same base, but—yes, in the past, my partners and I have had mutual overloads.”

Nightbeat still has his hand clapped around his lower face. “You mean _all_ the time?”

“Well… yes,” Rung says. “Isn’t that… I mean to say, I thought that was fairly normal.”

“It’s more of a porn thing,” Nightbeat offers helpfully, pulling his hand away from his mouth but not _too_ far, just in case it gets intense again. “It takes a lot of deliberate timing and knowing your partner to get them to line up. It’s definitely not an _every time_ thing.”

“It definitely does not happen when one party is just giving oral,” Megatron agrees. He’s still looking at his fingers, possibly trying to find the source of the tingle that Nightbeat can all but see lingering on his metal.

“Are you alright?” Rung asks, pushing himself up. “Did I cause you any distress?”

Megatron’s gaze snaps up and fixes on Rung. “I would happily submit myself to distress worse than this, to feel the moment of your pleasure so viscerally.”

Rung flushes again. Nightbeat makes a show of checking the radio wave log, which actually does have some good pithy findings that he will definitely look at in more depth when he can devote less processor space to keeping his libido under control.

Megatron rubs Rung’s hip with his thumb, just the pad of it half the width of Rung’s ball joint. He takes Rung’s thigh in his other hand and tugs the smaller mech down the berth, until he’s completely enveloped in Megatron’s shadow. “You’re astonishing,” Megatron says. “Generous, even in this. I hope your previous lovers appreciated that fact.”

“You’re,” Rung coughs into his fist, looking away, “you’re quite, um. Quite generous yourself. I hope I’m not asking too much…”

“You have yet to ask for anything,” Megatron says, “although now is a fine time to start.”

Oh boy. Rung is hot for something about the nebulous megatron package—for Rung’s sake, he hopes it’s the shape or the power of the frame, and not, like, the _mass extinction_ thing—but Nightbeat knows people and he knows what raw physical want looks like. Megatron… Megatron is more worrying. Because unless he’s playing a game Nightbeat can’t even begin to fathom, this kind of interest, this kind of body language? 

This doesn’t feel like a randy Decepticon jumping on easy game. This feels like a crush. 

He can kind of see it, though. After all, Rung is someone who _should_ be liked. It’s just that nobody seems to be paying attention. 

Nightbeat clears his intake pointedly. When Rung and Megatron both startle to look at him, he drops his attention to the transmitter in his hands. “A good experiment requires replication,” he says, spinning the sensitivity dial. “And anyway, I’m curious to see if the phenomenon still reaches the surrounding floors when Megatron is absorbing the brunt of it like that.”

“Hmm.” Megatron gives him an arch look, and then a thoughtful one to Rung. “Well, I am at your disposal for the evening.”

Rung gulps. The thumbs on his hips slip under his thighs, petting the still wet and still swollen components of his interface array. The two digits together are bigger than Rung’s spike, and when Rung doesn’t resist, they gently knead and part the narrow valve lips, sinking in a little deeper with each stroke.

“I,” Rung says. “I,”

“I could suck you off all night,” Megatron says, possibly in reassurance, possibly threat. It’s impossible to tell from his tone. “You could fall asleep with your spike in my mouth.”

Nightbeat definitely clamps his hand back around his mouth, suspended painfully between instant horniness and the realization that this isn’t just a little crush Megatron is sporting, it’s a _serious_ crush. On his _friend,_ from the guy whose victim impact statements lasted _six fragging months._

“We c,could,” Rung stutters, “we could go again, if, if Nightbeat doesn’t mind-”

Like a real, honest to primus crush, like he had already decided he liked Rung long before the mystery was brought up. Like maybe Nightbeat had missed something crucial about Megatron, somewhere off screen, somewhere that left no tracks or footprints back.

Whirring and steaming, Rung is certainly the _brightest_ Nightbeat has ever seen him, and in a way that doesn’t seem to stop at his spark glass or his glowing array. It makes sense, he supposes—transmitting that signal across half the ship would take an enormous amount of energy, which he can only imagine strains the bounds of Rung’s frame to contain. 

_But_. But but but. As Rung heaves another breath through his auxiliary systems, the shape of him, the sound of his fans, the particularly vulnerable shape of his panting mouth, these all seem to be writing themselves into Nightbeat’s memory like ink into porous paper. He is struck by the feeling that he is witnessing something primal, something powerful, something with a kind of blazing purity that will alone remain after all his other memories are red dust across the wastelands.

And then he shakes it off. Fanciful musings are not going to solve this mystery, no matter how strangely pretty they are. He’s got pulse waves to monitor. And also a list of hab suites above this one to cross reference with his growing list of afflicted mechs.

“Alright,” he says, uncrossing and recrossing his legs, “let’s get started.”


End file.
